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Watch this amazing HD footage from the 1962 Monaco Grand Prix

'Mediterranean Holiday' documentary drops in on some great racing action

January 19, 2018

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Vintage racing footage -- anything filmed before about 1975 -- can be a bit of crapshoot, literally. Film quality was bottom shelf at times, cameras were largely stationary and could rarely adjust to the light conditions properly, and videotape quality of the day was exponentially worse than on your smartphone today. This means that aside from a handful of really well-filmed 24 Hours of Le Mans races where tens of thousands of dollars were spent on equipment and coverage, pickings are slim if you want to see something in a "modern" resolution.

That fact makes this bit of racing footage from the 1962Monaco Grand Prix extremely rare and borderline breathtaking. It's a part of a 1962 West German documentary titled "Mediterranean Holiday" that didn't really have much to do with racing. The full documentary centers on Monaco and includes appearances by Prince Rainier of Monaco, King Constantine of Greece and (finally someone we can recognize) Graham Hill, Bruce McLaren and Princess Grace of Monaco. At the 1:46 mark, you can see the two royals watching the race yards away from the action, with just a simple guardrail separating them from the cars.

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We tend to take modern Formula 1 footage for granted, so it can be a little hard to appreciate just how good the camera work is for the day. Driver and spectator safety, on the other hand, are barely concepts. But at least other traffic was redirected from the racing route, so that's a bonus.

The heavy vignette in the footage and the relatively low dynamic range are perhaps the only period touches -- film colors are on the warmer side as well -- but overall this bit of film is Italian-chef-kisses-fingers-good. And so is the sound.

Unfortunately, the whole film is not about the 1962 Monaco Grand Prix or any other Grand Prix, so don't rush out to buy the DVD. "Mediterranean Holiday" belongs to a bygone genre of fawning, buttoned-up travel documentaries, and it offers a window into the relatively lean postwar era in Southern Europe, presenting plenty of sights that aren't available anymore. It's worth buying it for that, but probably not for the Monaco GP alone.